I have a love-hate relationship with dandelions. Their fat, gloriously yellow heads are a sunny delight spread across the fields and their tenacity – flowering from February through to November – means they welcome in the colder, grimmer months. The delicate orbs of their seed heads are a harbinger of first frosts, the smell of autumnal smoke, spider silk drifting through the air – and goldfinches love them.

But seeing the flat rosettes of their leaves in the vegetable patch is hugely irritating. They have deep taproots that snap as you dig them up and, like a vegetal version of a horror flick, they regenerate from a fragment left in the soil. All the better to try and eat the little blighters.

Our word dandelion comes from the French, dent de lion, or dente di leone in Italian, and refers to the green teeth on the leaves. In France, they're also called pissenlit, and when my dad was growing up in Cork he called them piss-the-bed too, for the leaves have diuretic properties.

The first medicinal use of the dandelion was in the 10th century. Kew's Ethnomedica project, which records British traditional herbal remedies, has 116 recommendations for using dandelions to cure warts. In traditional medicine, dandelions have been used to treat liver and kidney problems as well as digestive disorders. The plants are a rich source of vitamins A, B, C, and D, and contain minerals such as iron, potassium and zinc.

Dandelion flowers collected for use in a risotto. Photograph: Sanjida O'Connell

Every bit of the plant is edible: the young leaves can be used in salads (if you're planning on eating the ones in your garden, you could blanch them by putting a pot over them to make the leaves pale and less bitter) or boiled as a vegetable. Antonio Carluccio remembers his mother sending him out to pick the leaves until his hands, sticky with sap, turned black. She braised the dandelions with capers, chilli and garlic or made them into pie.

In autumn, when the roots are fat, they can be scrubbed, dried, roasted and ground to create a powder for making coffee. Let's just say though, it tastes nothing like coffee; even Roger Phillips, author of Wild Food, suggests adding drinking chocolate to make it more palatable.

So I go for the far more girly option of cooking the flowers and making them into a jewel-like risotto inspired by a recipe from the Vegetarian Society.

• First, prepare your dandelion petals. • Wash the flower heads in cold water to get rid of any insects, then cut off the end and peel back the green sepals like a huala skirt, freeing the petals. You'll need about 150g for four people plus a few extra as a garnish. • Saute an onion in two tablespoons olive oil with two cloves of garlic for about five minutes, but don't allow it to brown. • Add 300g of arborio rice. Stir into the onions and then pour in 125ml of dry white wine or pale, bone-dry rose. Once absorbed, gradually add a ladleful of stock at a time, allowing the rice to soak up the liquid before adding more. You'll need around 700ml. The rice will take at least half an hour to cook. • Add 125g of something creamy – fromage frais or yoghurt - plus 100g of grated parmesan and the dandelion petals. • Serve immediately, drizzled with olive oil and scattered with golden-yellow petals.